Three Bullets
by Centaur
Summary: NOW FINISHED! What would have happened if Neo had safely escaped the subway station before fighting Agent Smith? An alternate universe story.
1. TODAY

RATING:  R.  

DISCLAIMER:  I claim no rights to the Matrix characters or concepts; they belong to the Wachowskis and the WB.  And I'm useless to sue since I have no money.

SYNOPSIS:  What would have happened if Neo had safely escaped the subway station before fighting Agent Smith?  An alternate universe story.

THANKS:  To Kirstma, who gave me this idea by first asking the question I've attempted to answer here.  To Scottishlass, for saying "finish the damn thing, would you?!"  And, of course, to the great and wonderful MTS, who edits all my pieces so beautifully and asks nothing in return except my undying affection.

A/N:  This started as a pretty standard what-if story, dealing with the question above.  But it's evolved into something beyond just that, really.  What do I mean?  Oh, that would spoil the fun. . . you'll just have to read it, I guess.  The Wachowskis have given us such wonderful characters to play with, what can I say?  Part 1 basically sets the scene; parts 2 and 3 are more plot-driven and will follow shortly.  

THREE BULLETS

_This one fact the world hates:  that the soul _becomes_; for that forever degrades the past. . . .___

__

_            -Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance___

I.  TODAY 

_We do not touch each other.___

_Each of us is a microcosm, a universe contained within the envelope of our own flesh.  We have our own worlds and we do not understand each others' beyond recognizing that they are different from our own.  We are gods in our own right, defining existence behind our own eyes and latching onto it, white-knuckled, as to the string of a good kite on a windy day.  To exist is to be perceived, so we perceive existence and hope, every night, that we will live to see this time tomorrow.___

_We do not touch each other.___

_Shoulders rub in the corridor and it burns like a branding iron.  Fingertips brush when we play cards, and it stings.  Skin becomes thick and tough and so hypersensitive that it's numb.  Contact opens a portal between us, as though bits of our own realities leak into each other and neutralize.  Matter and anti-matter.  A frightening moment of peace, loss of self.  ___

_But then there are the cold nights.  We cannot tell the seasons anymore, but there are cold nights all year, so cold that we ball up beneath extra blankets, knees to chest, and still shiver.  Those are the times we come together.  We seek out each others' rooms and lie down together, and beyond the burn and the sting, we are finally warm.  We lie man with man, woman with woman, or men and women together—this is not sexual.  We grow close.  And on the worst nights we find ourselves all together, all of us, curled together, holding each other stiffly and loosely, awkward.  We do not speak.  The burn of contact is aching and somehow it becomes easier to breathe.  We do not speak.___

_The next morning we creep out, one at a time as we wake, to our own cells.  There we sit, shivering, alone, regrouping.  Recollecting ourselves within ourselves.  We do not speak of those nights when we fall asleep together, fully clothed, and let ourselves go, silently gasping at the ecstasy of sleeping in the warmth of other people.  Released.___

_And then we are ice again.  We do not touch each other.___

***

The subway station was dark and hollow, empty like a soul cage when they arrived.  Their footsteps echoed through the tunnels as they sprinted down the steps, the ringing phone calling to them.  

Neo got there first, Trinity a brief half-step behind.  Morpheus came shortly after that, limping a little from his brutal beating, and clutching at his bloodied, still-handcuffed wrist.  A brief glance passed between the three.

"You first, Morpheus," Neo said quietly, holding out the receiver.  And the captain, too tired to argue, accepted it gratefully, pressing the portal to his ear.  The remaining two watched as his code thinned and vanished, the telephone receiver falling to dangle at the end of its cord.  Neo replaced it in its cradle.

"Neo, I want to tell you something."  Trinity's voice broke the silence.  There was an intensity in her tone to which Neo had become accustomed, but this time, there was something more, an edge of something—

Was she nervous?

He brought his eyes to meet hers, and was befuddled by what he saw – an uncertainty, a lack of confidence that Trinity would rarely ever let show.  In an instant he thought of a million things to say – _Are you all right, Trinity?  What's wrong, Trinity?  Can I help you?  Can I do anything?  Can I ask you if you felt what I felt up on that rooftop, after you jumped out of that helicopter—_

He remained silent, and waited.  The quiet was pierced by the phone as it began to ring again.

Trinity looked down, "But I'm afraid of what it might mean if I do..."

_No, you're not.  Trinity is never afraid. Somewhere in depths of his senses, Neo heard the distant rumble of an approaching train.  He stepped closer to her.  _

"Everything the Oracle told me has come true," she looked up, "everything but this..."

The rumble grew to a roar and a train whizzed through the abandoned station, the sudden rush of wind breaking their attention for a moment.  It was enough.  With an almost pained look and a subtle shake of her head, Trinity slipped past Neo into the phone booth and pressed the receiver to her ear.  Neo stared numbly as she vanished, then watched as the phone fell to the end of its line.  For a moment he stared at it blankly, wondering what on earth that had been about, before picking it up and resetting it.  

A few seconds later, Neo's eyes fluttered open on the ship, his consciousness settling uneasily back into his body.  As soon as he was released he turned to Trinity's chair—

But she was already gone.

***

Trinity cleaned and wrapped Morpheus' bloody wrists, then sent him off to keep watch while she took care of Tank.  Morpheus was tired and his head swam, still, a little, from the Agents' injection, so she had offered to take care of the medical duties by herself.  A patch of skin the size of her open hand had been blown from Tank's side, exposing muscle and oozing red blood.  He had sprayed it with a numbing salve before Trinity and Neo had returned to get Morpheus, allowing him to keep working, but that let him move the wound in ways it shouldn't have been moved.  It was stretched and torn, now. 

"Thanks . . . thanks for doing this," Tank said shakily as he lay on the table, arm bent above his head.  Trinity crouched beside him, cleaning the wound and packing it with sterile gauze, stitching up the edges with the uploaded skill of a surgeon.  The latex gloves, selected for the regular medic, were too big on her hands.

"No problem," she said quietly.  Nobody mentioned Dozer.

She was just finishing up, peeling the gloves from her hands, when the alarm sounded.

Morpheus and Neo were already in the cockpit when Trinity arrived—Morpheus in his seat, Neo hovering behind him in the doorway.  Trinity pushed past when she arrived, flipping switches and pressing buttons before she had even fully sat down.  The holograph flashed "proximity warning" over the scrolling images of various machine hunters, finally settling on one—

"Sentinels," she said with a shaky intake of breath.  In the corner of her eye she saw Neo step closer to the wall.  He had his blanket wrapped over his shoulders and he sunk further into it, pulling it tighter across his chest.  Beside her, Morpheus activated a comlink:  "Tank, charge the EMP."  

They touched down with a soft bump, Neo taking a firm grip on the pipe beside him but still stumbling a step back.  An instant later, the control panel went dark, the lights fading.  "Power offline," came Tank's voice, "EMP armed."  

The squid flashed into their field of view, then, greeted by the humans with a quiet gasp.  Morpheus tied a rag over his head, Neo pulled his blanket over his almost-bald scalp.  _They sense body heat_, Morpheus had told him, _so you have to cover your head when they're around, until your hair grows back._  Neo touched his hairline, now, and felt the soft fuzz there.  Not too much longer, now.  Soon.  

The sentinel seemed to swim through the air, floating with supernatural grace through the tunnel.  Then another, following it, and another.  They zeroed in on the cockpit almost instantly, lasers up and poised.  In the cabin all was deathly still and silent, four people holding a collective breath.  These were the times that Trinity's life really flashed before her eyes—Matrix fights didn't faze her; she could leap off of forty-story buildings without batting an eye.  But out here, when the threat was real and not just in her head, everything seemed so much more personal; like the sentinels were looking them in the eye as they killed them, peering into them so they'd know exactly whom it was they were butchering.  It was as though they revelled in death.  

But it wasn't for herself that she worried now – not for her own life, anyway.  There was only so much death she could take in one day, and if she lost anybody else she wasn't sure how she would react.  Especially these three, who meant more to her than any of the others.  In the frozen stillness she felt herself cross her arms over her chest, holding herself.  Morpheus did the same.  They were all on edge tonight.  In the corner of her eye, Trinity could see Neo's white-knuckled grip on the pipes, tendons bulging in his hands.  _We'll be okay, Neo.  We'll be okay._  

And then the sentinels were gone, swimming away through the tunnels.  Neo let out a shuddering gasp.  Trinity relished the feeling of the air as she inhaled again.


	2. YESTERDAY

"Do you see him?  Do you see the story?  Do you see anything?  It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream – making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible that is the very essence of dreams. . . ."

_He was silent for awhile._

_". . . No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence – that which makes its truth, its meaning – its subtle and penetrating essence.  It is impossible.  We live as we dream – alone. . . ."_

_-Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness_

II.  YESTERDAY

They say the eyes are the gateway to the soul, so we look each other in the eye when we speak.  It doesn't make sense; to understand each other best we should watch each others' mouths, watch the shapes made by the lips, associate sight with sound.  But we don't – we look each other in the eye, intently.  We try not to blink, we try not to look away.  Always in the eye.  It is an unspoken agreement between us, especially.

_Inside, we wear sunglasses as much for each other as for the strangers we encounter, though nobody ever says so outright.  Eyes look different in the Matrix:  colours change just a little, the way the light reflects, the imperfections of the pupil.  To look each other in the eye in the Matrix is to look into something so blatantly and obviously false, synthetic like the Matrix world itself.  This way the eyes aren't distracting, we can look at each other without noticing how wrong we appear.  When we lose our glasses or are required, for some reason, to take them off, we avoid each others gazes.  It becomes instinct.  We are addicted to and dependent on reality; blatant displays of falsehood are repugnant to us.___

_Daytime in the Matrix is so beautiful it burns the back of the mind.  We feel pale, sallow, when we are inside; we have never seen sunlight and our artificial indoor lamps are a poor substitute.  We are struck, often, at the contrast of our appearances to everybody else.  We are free, we are outside, we know the truth.  We are enlightened.  But our skin is papery, the space under our eyes is dark.___

_***_

The morning came too soon, and Trinity didn't want to get up.   She had learned to overcome the exhaustion that greeted her every day with the lights, but this time it was more than that.  Yesterday had been too long, too much for one day.  For one week, even.  Too much.

And what had happened in the subway, anyway?  What was it that had overcome her, pressing her to tell him now, to talk to him _now? _  The time had been wrong, the world had been wrong.  _It has to be real, Trinity.  ___

But she wasn't really comfortable with where she was at the moment, anyway, and to some extent she still wasn't certain when it was that she had given in – she had been so self-assured, before, and things, in their own peculiar way, had seemed to make sense.  The world in general – and the Matrix, especially – were rational, they could be reasoned out and accounted for most of the time.  It was simply up to her to avoid the irrationalities.  So she tended to shy away from the things that were beyond the realm of the explainable, breaking everything down to its simplest components.  Emotion was kept to a minimum.

That wasn't to say that she hadn't loved the crew – Switch, Dozer, Mouse, Apoc… yes, she had loved them deeply in her own way, the way that made her smile when she opened her eyes after Matrix excursions and found that they were all still there, alive, the sounds of eight people breathing in the newly-woken silence.  She had loved them in the way that made her look forward to the card games they would play in the mess hall, gambling with their chores and hours of watch, Mouse always suggesting that they should play strip poker instead this time and Switch always cuffing him, lightly, across the back of the head in response.  She had loved them in the way that made her lungs and stomach burn – _agony – _as she watched them die.  

Even Cypher she had loved, in a way that had made sense to her – in some ways, she had loved him more than the others.  Because at the times when she became disillusioned he wouldn't hold it against her; he never seemed insulted when, in her moments of weakness or especially after the death of a crewmate, she would confide that she wasn't certain that the end of this would come in her lifetime.  Those moments were rare – her sense of purpose was unshakeable, usually – but they happened.  And there had been times she wished she could have loved Cypher in the way he wanted her to.  But she couldn't – that kind of love wasn't something she could stoop to, something she could abandon herself to, without the risk of losing her ability to calculate things, to reason.  There had been the one time – but no, she hadn't loved him that way, not even then, when he had panted her name in her ear and they had held each other in the dark among the engines . . . 

But now Cypher – _murderous, cowardly bastard – _ was gone, and he'd taken four of those eight waking breaths with him, so the silence was more complete when she woke in her chair.  Five more bodies in the cryo chamber for proper cremation in Zion.  One a little apart from the others, that would be the first thing to land in the incinerator if every they ran low on space.  And she was glad she had never let herself love him that way.

But what, then, of Neo?

The words of the Oracle sprung to her mind – _Your logic and your instinct will pull you in different directions, Trinity.  That had happened, back there in the TV repair shop, when she had answered __yes to Cypher's question and let her trust for him – the trust that had been erected over years – dissolve in favour of the way her breath caught in her throat when Neo walked into the room. And slowly, now, lying on her back with her eyes closed on the bed, she let herself slip back to the moment five years ago when her future had been set, laid before her like a dinner plate._

_The basement hallway smelled of mould and stale urine; the air was cold and thin.  Graffiti stained the walls: "For a good time call . . ."  "The Revolution is NOW!!!"  "Life's a bitch and then you die."  "Acid:  the ONLY orgasm."  "Fuck you!"  "Tommy-heart-" and a scratched-out name.   But it seemed fitting, somehow, that the mother of the Revolution worked from a slum like this.  It's not real, anyway._

_Trinity walked a half-step behind Morpheus, more out of habit than anything else.  "You didn't have to come down here with me, you know," she said, "I would have been all right on my own."_

_"I know," Morpheus answered, looking back at her over his shoulder, "but it's standard practice.  You know that.  Her guidance isn't always . . . pleasant.  It can help to have somebody to meet you when you leave."_

_She didn't answer.  Instead she stood a little taller, pulling her trenchcoat squarer over her shoulders.  Her boots were chafing her calves, rubbing the soft skin just below her knees.  _

_"Here," Morpheus said, stopping in front of a nondescript orange door.  He turned to face her then, standing back, hand held out for her to enter first.  _

_Inside was dark and smoky, smelling faintly of weed.  The room was panelled in dark oak with rustic, high-backed wooden furniture, and everything felt pleasantly worn to the touch.  The lights were dim._

_There was a woman standing there, waiting for them; she wore jeans over boots, and a plain black t-shirt.  Her hair was dark and wavy, touching her shoulderblades, but she had eyes like a snake – silver and yellow and blue, sparkled together, and Trinity wondered what she could see with those eyes, why they could look at her and look through her at the same time.  _

_"Come with me, Trinity," she said, her hand held up.  Morpheus sat on one of the stiff chairs near the door.  _

_She followed the woman through a door and down a short, narrow hallway.  The scent of smoke was stronger here, cigarettes and weed and traces of sweat.  But everything was eerily hollow, and Trinity could hear the echo of her footsteps rattling off the walls.  The woman stopped at the point where the hallway turned, sharply, though there was no door.  "Through here," she said, standing back.  And Trinity walked on, turning, to find herself in— _

_A bar.  _

_The smoke hit her like a wall, here, thick and cloudy, hanging stagnant at eye-level.  But otherwise the room seemed empty – chairs were upturned on the tables; there was a small dance floor near the back that was vacant.  Only the bartender was there, behind her counter at the far end of the room.  She was a tall, thin woman with a dark complexion, hair in long braids down her back – she was striking.  Her arms were crossed over her chest and she leaned back, against the wall, gaze fixed on Trinity, who hovered in the doorway.   They eyed each other warily for a moment from across the room._

_Trinity was confused.  "Are you—"_

_"The Oracle?  Yeah."  A smile tugged at the corners of the bartender's lips, and they watched each other in silence for a few more seconds.  "Well, come on over," she said finally, grinning.  She had a warm, full voice that reminded Trinity faintly of a lounge singer; she felt it envelop her, dense, seeping like a drug._

_There were a few stools at one end of the bar.  Trinity leaned on one of them, one boot-heel hooked over the foot-rest, the other braced on the ground.  She bent forward, elbows crossed against the wooden counter.  The bartender walked over then, slowly; she wore bracelets that jingled with every step.  "So, Trinity," she said, "how about a drink?"  _

_Taken aback, Trinity looked up:  "Uh, sure."  _

_"Tequila," the oracle said firmly.  "We'll do it together."  Trinity couldn't respond before the bartender walked away and pulled a bottle off a shelf.  A moment later a shot glass, full to the rim of clear liquid, came sliding down the bar at her, slowing to a stop immediately between her elbows, not a drop overflowing.  The bartender followed it closely, holding another identical glass in front of her, loosely, between thumb and forefinger._

_Trinity sighed and shook her head, running a hand through her slicked hair.  A beer would have been more her fare.  "So do I get salt and lemon, here?"_

_The other woman laughed.  "No way!  None of that wimpy stuff in my bar.  Take it straight."  She held her glass in front of her, eyeing it firmly, as though challenging it.  "Come on.  Cheers!"_

_Trinity held her glass up in front of her and studied it through her sunglasses.  God, tequila.  She hadn't had tequila since her unplugging, but damn, that was even worse than Dozer's stuff.  She shook her head and sighed, clinking her glass against the other.  "Cheers."  As she touched the glass to her lips she braced herself, tensing in anticipation of the burn about to hit her throat, exhaling—_

_But she hardly felt it at all as it touched her tongue and rushed down her throat.  Cool with a bit of a sting, dulling as it hit her stomach.  _

_The bartender held out her hand for the empty glass, exhaling softly through her mouth.  "Not quite the same when you know it's not real, is it.  Hard to convince yourself to feel anything."    _

_Trinity pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth and nodded.  "It's not the same."_

_The Oracle smiled gently.  "But it's better than feeling nothing at all."  She paused for a moment to pull a pack of cigarettes out from under the counter.  Trinity could read the slogan printed on the side in bold letters:  You've come a long way, baby.  Or something like that, she thought._

_"So tell me, Trinity, what do you know about yourself?"  The Oracle's voice was soft, just a little raspy from the smoke.___

_"What do you mean?"_

_"Well, you seem pretty self-assured, like you know what you're doing with yourself.  I'm just wondering what you know."_

_Trinity sat up a little straighter, pulling back her shoulders.  "I've been out for seven years," she said, "I'm pretty familiar with everything in here, and out there."  She waved her hand dismissively, as though "out there" were simply outside the building, or on the other side of the wall.___

_The bartender took another drag on her cigarette.  "Okay, then, what do you know?"___

_"I don't know what you mean—"___

_"All right, all right.  Love, Trinity.  Have you ever been in love?"  A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips and eyes.___

_"No."___

_"Think you ever will?"___

_"Ha, no, never."  There was a tone of finality to her voice.___

_"Why are you so sure?"___

_"I can't afford to fall in love.  Love slows you down, and I can't afford to be slow."___

_The Oracle nodded but didn't break her gaze, eye-to-eye, waiting for her to continue.___

_"I know I value life," Trinity went on.  "Once you lose that, it's gone.  You can't beat death."___

_"Hmm . . . ."  The bartender stepped back, turning to the ashtray to ash her cigarette.  "You're all about logic.  You know that your heart is irrational, so you follow your head."___

_"Yes."  Exactly.  Your head keeps you out of the trouble that everything else dumps you in, Trinity thought.___

_"That's what it all comes down to for you.  Head or heart.  Logic or instinct."  She punctuated her statements with a flick of her wrist, as though tapping the air with her index finger.  "And you've got your heart walled away so far that you're going to think you've forgotten how to use it.  But you know, there's so much riding on your not forgetting."___

_"What do you mean?"___

_She hesitated, looking at Trinity sideways, through the corner of her eye.  "Are you sure you want to know?"  With one hand she pulled her hair back over her shoulders, bracelets tinkling.___

_"Yes."___

_"Your logic and your instinct will pull you in different directions, Trinity.  In one hand, you're going to hold everything you've always taken for granted – everything that makes sense.  In the other hand – well, in the other, you hold the future of the resistance, with all of its discomforts and uncertainties."___

_Trinity lifted her head slowly, and inhaled sharply, through her nose.  "No."  She said it decisively, shaking her head.  "No, there's no way I can have that kind of influence.  I follow my reasoning."___

_"Well then, this doesn't matter to you, now does it?"___

_"No. . .  no, I suppose not."___

_"All right, then, I guess there's no point in my saying any more—"___

_"Where does my heart lead?"  The words tumbled out of Trinity's mouth before she could stop them, overflowing like a tipped water glass.___

_The Oracle leaned forward then, bringing her face close to Trinity's in a gesture of friendly intimacy, as though they were sharing a secret over a high-school cafeteria table.  She smiled knowingly, eyes twinkling.  "True love, Trinity.  With the best man of them all."  Her tone thickened into something giddy and defiant at the same time:  "Everything you think you know will flip on its head, backwards."___

_"The best man of them all?"  Trinity could feel her breath becoming shallow, her heart speeding up just a little.  Nerves, she told herself, just nerves.___

_There was a moment of silence, the two women holding each other's gaze, locked in a tension that seemed solid.  "The One," the Oracle said finally, lips twitching.___

_Trinity felt herself pull back as though slapped, like the recoil of a gun.  "The One is a legend," she said, forcing the words out one at a time.  "There is no One."___

_The bartender shrugged, then reached to butt out her cigarette.  "Well now, it looks like that's going to depend on you."_

God, it was too much to think about that early in the day, too much to consider on top of everything else that was going on.  Trinity sat up quickly and immediately regretted it, as a shot of pain screamed its way through her left shoulder and upper arm.  A glance beneath her collar confirmed it:  the skin there was blotched in hues from purple to green to black, a bruised mass from her collarbone to her elbow resulting from her collision with the window of the office building the day before.  Groaning in frustration, she pulled something from the drawer under her bed, and went to the door.  Neo was in the corridor, walking to his room.

 "Hey," he paused briefly beside her. "Where you headed?"

"Boiler room," she said, giving a last tug to the rusty door-latch, before looking up at him.  

"Oh – something wrong with the engines?  Let me know if you need any help—"

A twitch tugged at the corners of Trinity's lips, a bemused glint tinkling in the back of her eyes.  "There's nothing wrong," she said.  From her pocket, she pulled a crumpled foil packet, holding it out in the palm of her hand.  "I'm going for a smoke."  Then, almost a reluctant afterthought, questioning:  "You can come with me, if you like."

Neo took the pack from her, opening it to find seven or eight crudely-fashioned grey cigarettes, hand rolled.  Inadvertently he chuckled, shaking his head softly, and placed the foil back in her hand.  "Sure," he said, shrugging, "I'll come."

The air in the boiler room was always clogged with a thin film of steam from the fusion reactors, light enough not to feel heavy when you inhaled it, but thick enough to cloud your vision just a little.  It was always hot down there, with the metallic, dry heat of machinery, that left skin feeling slick and lips feeling dry and tight, sweat collecting in the hollows of backs and necks.  Trinity pulled off her sweater and sat on the floor in her tank top, back pressed against the incinerator.  Neo sat across from her, leaning against the wall with his knees bent up in front of him.  He watched as Trinity pulled a tin can out from behind a cluster of pipes, then reached over and fully opened one of the cooling ducts.  She held the pack out to him.

"No, thanks," he said, "I don't."

She nodded, then pulled one out for herself and set the packet down beside her.  A match flared and she touched it to the end of her cigarette, before shaking it out with a single flick of her wrist and dropping it into the can.  When she drew the smoke into her lungs she held it there, not breathing, for as long as she dared, before letting it slide slowly out her nose.  She leaned back, resting her head against the unyielding metal, and let her eyes close.

"I didn't know you smoked," Neo said, after a few minutes of silence.

"I really don't," she replied.  "Very rarely.  Once every four or five weeks, maybe, or less.  Not addicted or anything."

Neo nodded.  "Stuff's bad for you," he said, laughing.  Trinity's lips twitched again and for a moment it looked like she might smile, but pulled back at the last instant.

"These aren't even real cigarettes."  Trinity lifted her head and eyed him through the steam, forearms resting on her bent knees.  "They're just herbals, made from something this guy I know grows in Zion.  I hardly feel anything."  She leaned forward and stretched to flick the ash off into the can.  

"Then why do it?"  Neo blurted out the question and instantly regretted it – he didn't know Trinity that well, yet, after all, but he knew her well enough to know that challenging her so blindly wasn't a good idea.

But Trinity didn't lash out or jump to the offensive as he had expected.  Instead, her lips trembled again in that little almost-smile, and she shook her head, looking down.  "Because sometimes it's better than feeling nothing at all."  Neo could see the plugs dotting her arm, metal recessions set in the grooves between the muscles.  He fingered his own arm plug through the fabric of his shirt, feeling angry revulsion rising to his throat and coating it, like tar.  Despite the heat of the room, he would not roll up his sleeves.  Would he ever be as accepting of it all as she was, sitting there with her plugs staring openly at the world, unhindered?

"I guess I'm the only one, now," she said, eventually.

"What?"

"There used to be a lot of us who would come down here from time to time.  Me, Switch, Apoc, Cypher, even Mouse.  We'd come down and play cards and pass a cigarette . . ."

Neo sat forward, inching closer, listening.

"Sometimes I'd come down here just with Cypher, and we'd talk."  Trinity's throat constricted briefly through the smoke, tendons bulging for just an instant before relaxing.  Her eyes were fixed on something above Neo's head.  "He was a good friend to me, you know?  Because for a long time we were the cynics."

"Cynics?"

"Disbelievers."

"In what?"

She didn't answer, and the ash-end glowed at him through the steam.  "Miracles," she said, finally.

Neo felt his mouth go dry.

"The difference between us was that I still thought there was hope," Trinity said slowly, eyebrows furrowed.  "I thought we could win anyway, maybe, and even if we couldn't, that didn't mean we should stop trying.  But he just thought everything was lost.  He was angry.  But I never thought. . . ."  Her voice trailed off, dissolving into the air.

"Are you still a cynic now?" Neo asked, hesitantly.

She met his eyes.  "No."

There was a creaking sound—the door opening, feet clanking down the rusty ladder.  Tank.  Neo and Trinity watched his boots in silence as they touched the ground and passed around the side of a boiler to come into view.

"Oh – hey, guys," he said, stopping as he noticed them.  He almost seemed to feel out of place, taken aback.  "I just came down to see why the duct was open."  He waved his hand dismissively at the vent Trinity had opened, which was drawing the smoke out of the room and spitting it out into the sewer.  

"I'll close it when I'm done," Trinity said.  "Sorry.  You want?"  She slid the pack in his direction.

"No thanks."  He laughed.  "I don't get you Matrix-borns and your cigarettes."  He shook his head.  "That shit'll kill you."

"Care to sit with us for a bit?" Trinity asked quickly, voice stiffening.

"I would, but I'm on watch.  I better get back up.  Oh, and Neo, Morpheus wants to see you in the cockpit when you have a minute."

"All right.  Tell him I'll be up in a minute."

Tank nodded and retreated back behind the metal basin, and again, with soft clinks, his boots climbed back up and out.  The door closed.

"He's got a point about the cigarettes," Neo said, laughing half-heartedly.

"What, that they'll kill me?"

"Yeah."

"Mmm. . . . Eventually.  In forty years, maybe.  But you know, in this line of work, we'll be lucky to see five years – hell, we'll be lucky to see five months.  So if this is going to kill me in forty years, I don't care.  I like it, it relaxes me right now, when I need it.  And that's all we've got, really."  She looked up.  "The moment."  

Neo watched as she took a last pull, then reached forward and pressed the butt determinedly, longer than she needed to, into the can, crushing it with the full force of her arm and shoulder instead of just her fingers.  "I swear, Neo," she said, "the minute it looks like the end of the war is in sight is the minute I'm done with these for good."  She shook her head and exhaled something that might have been a laugh, but mirthless.  "I think I'll have another."

He handed her the book of matches and watched as she lit one.  "I guess I should go up and see Morpheus," he said.  

She nodded.  "Thanks for the company."

"Pleasure's all mine," he laughed, and headed up the ladder.

Trinity felt her shoulders relax with each step of Neo's boots up the ladder, and finally let her head drop down in front of her chest.  Her pulse throbbed in her stomach as though it might break the skin.  Her fist clenched and she pressed it to the point below her ribs where it almost hurt.  Of all the spots to sit, Neo had chosen that one, leaning against the wall next to that pipe.  _That pipe.  The memory of what had happened there, at that very spot, made her want to vomit now; she tasted bile, felt her throat constrict in a way that she recognized all too well.  _

They had acted first and thought later.  She recognized that, now.  It wasn't like they had planned it; wasn't like it had been slow or pretty or romantic.  The thought never occurred to her before it actually happened – Cypher was _Cypher_, after all, her friend, her good friend.  But there were always times when the loneliness could become overwhelming, the coldness and the isolation, and that was one of them.  

They had all been down there playing cards, the whole crew.  They weren't gambling that time, Trinity remembered; they were playing "asshole".  She didn't remember who won.  And at the end of the game everybody but the two of them had left to eat or sleep.  Trinity and Cypher stayed, though; they passed another cigarette quietly, just sitting.

"Hey – where's your name come from?" Cypher asked suddenly.

"What?"

"Your name.  'Trinity.'  How'd you choose it?"

She shrugged, reaching to tap the ashes of the cigarette into the can.  "I don't know.  I just read it somewhere – newspaper or something, I think – and liked the sound of it.  Felt right to me."

He nodded, then chuckled a little.  "It's kinda ironic, I guess."

"Why?"

"You.  A name like that.  Comes from religion, you know, faith and shit.  But you, you're like the opposite of that.  You do everything with your head."

She chuckled, then, as she passed him the cigarette.  "Kept me alive so far, I guess."

Cypher nodded.  "It's my birthday," he had said then, after a moment.

"Really?"  Trinity smiled.  "How old are you?"

"Four."  

"Ha, funny.  Really, how old are you today?"

"Four.  I was unplugged four years ago today."  He sighed then, blowing a thin stream of smoke between his lips.

"Oh, that kind of birthday.  Well, congratulations."

"Thanks."

Silence.

"When's your birthday, Trin?"  Cypher had asked, eventually.

"Unplugging?"

"Yeah."

"Six years ago, about, I think.  God, I don't really remember."

"Really?"

"Yeah."  Pause.  "Seems like it doesn't matter much anymore, you know?  So long ago.  I'm more worried about tomorrow than yesterday.  And now more than tomorrow."

Cypher laughed, then.  "I hear ya.  It's all about living in the moment."

"The moment," she said, "yeah."

Trinity had pressed the cigarette butt out in the can.  They were silent for awhile, just sitting; suddenly, she was painfully aware of him so close to her, side by side, their shoulders not quite touching.  "I guess I'll head up," she said, abruptly pulling away.

"Yeah."  

They had risen at the same time and then both stooped to pick up the deck of cards.  Their hands touched.  Instantly, impulsively, he had grabbed her wrist and pulled her against him and then they were kissing, pulling each other closer and kissing deeply, frantically.  They had stumbled around until Trinity's back thumped against a pipe and they slid to the ground.  It wasn't pretty or slow or romantic – no, it was fast and desperate, pants bunched around their knees, shirts pushed up but not removed.  She felt relief, such relief, at the feeling of him inside her, of being so close to someone for the first time in so long.  The next morning they would both find bruises on their arms and shoulders from where they had gripped each other tightly, but Trinity couldn't remember the feel of his hands on her skin.  All that stood out in her mind was the way her back had arched against the cold floor as she came.

They had pushed each other away, after that, and they never talked about it.  They had been young then (how young had she been?  If she had been out 6 years at the time, then…she was twenty, and he would have been twenty-two).  It wasn't what Trinity wanted from him, and Cypher never pushed her.  Was it then that he had begun to love her, in that harsh moment between them and the engine?  The taste of his mouth had been repulsive to her.  She hadn't cared at the time – she had needed the closeness then, at that moment, and he was there.  She had needed not to be alone.  At the time she wasn't sure if it was a bad thing that she couldn't love him, if it was somehow unfair.  Now, though, she was repulsed by what she had done with him, repulsed by herself.  The air in the room became thicker, suddenly, and it weighed on her, heavy against her chest.  Fingers of steam wrapping themselves around her neck, tighter, tighter.  She couldn't breathe.  She had to get out of there, be away from there.  In a hurried movement she butted her half-finished cigarette, then rose quickly and emptied the can into the incinerator before stashing it in its hiding place.  She closed the vent and then sprinted up the ladder, skin taut, throat closing, gasping for air.

***

The ladder to the cockpit was cold to the touch, stinging Neo's palms a little as he climbed.  Morpheus motioned to the co-pilot's chair and Neo slid in, pulling his hands and feet back to keep from accidentally touching anything on the dashboard.  

"You wanted to see me."

Morpheus was silent for a moment, unmoving.  His grip shifted on the controls.  "So . . . what do we do now?"

"What?"

"What do you want to do now?"

Caught off-guard, Neo was quiet for a few seconds.  "I don't know," he said haltingly.  "Why ask me?"

"These new developments give you greater influence in how we—"

"Morpheus. . . ." Neo cut in, and promptly realized what he had done and whom he had just interrupted.  His tone softened and became more tentative.  "The Oracle told me—"

"—what you needed to hear," Morpheus finished for him.

Neo shook his head, exasperated.  _Maybe she told me what _you_ needed to hear.  _"No," he said.  "She told me I'm not the one.  I'm not the One, Morpheus."  He pronounced each word clearly, individually.  "I am not the One."

Morpheus' face fell, chin coming down briefly to touch his chest.  "You're wrong," he said simply.

"I know what she told me," Neo said, frustrated now.

"But perhaps not what she meant."

Neo sighed.  "Morpheus, I'm sorry.  But I can't pretend to be what I'm not.  I'm not the One."

Morpheus was still for a moment, and he shook his head sadly.  "All right, Neo.  Get some rest."

Neo nodded.  "I'm sorry."  He rose, slowly, pulling his blanket tighter around his shoulders, and stepped to the ladder.

"Wait—"  Morpheus grabbed Neo's wrist suddenly.  "Send Trinity up."  

"Sure."  And he was gone.  

***

Trinity settled into the co-pilot's chair in the cockpit, gaze fixed out the window as Morpheus piloted the ship through the dark, narrow tunnels.  For a few minutes, neither spoke.

"So what do we do now?" Trinity asked.

Morpheus' face was impassive for several seconds.  "I'm not sure," he said finally.  "Zion, I think.  We'll need a one or two more people with experience, and then we can try to unplug the rest to make a full crew."

Trinity nodded.  She had assumed as much – but she loathed Zion, hated its absurd pseudo-normality, felt alienated in that world of everyday people.  It drowned her in its state of elevated consciousness, like you couldn't hide from the throbbing masses.  The quieter personality of the ship was a reassuring constant to her.

"So – you sent for me."  

"Yes."  Morpheus nodded.  "Have you spoken to Neo?"

Trinity froze.  "Since we came back, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Yeah.  He . . . seems all right."      

Morpheus paused as he slowed the ship, just slipping through a particularly narrow passage in the tunnel.  Then they sped up again.  "Trinity, what do you believe about him?"

Trinity's hands came together in her lap, fingers gripping each other, white-knuckled.  What did she believe?  Damn, what _did she believe?  The question threatened to choke her with its importance, to crush her.  "I . . ." her voice trailed off, and she couldn't finish._

"He's the One," Morpheus said forcefully, more to himself than to her.  "He is the One."  

Trinity's gaze was distant, frozen somewhere beyond the windshield.  _I know, she wanted to say, __God, I know, I know.  But it wouldn't come out.  She wouldn't let it come out.  _

"He needs to be pushed," Morpheus said.

"We'll kill him if we rush him."  She kept her voice level, quiet, confident.  "I won't do that."

Morpheus sighed and passed a hand over his head.  "Yes. You're right."  He was silent for a few seconds, watching the tunnels, fingers cupped over his mouth.  "I just don't understand it," he said finally.  "_He is the One.  Why would she have lied to him?"_

Trinity knew he was referring to the Oracle, and said nothing.

"I'd like you to take him back to see her."

"Just me?"  
  


"Yes."

"Why?"  Trinity had visited the Oracle only once in her life; Morpheus made a point of always bringing the summoned recruits himself.  The thought of making this her moment of return was unnerving, to say the least; everything balanced so precariously and she feared that any wrong move might topple it in the wrong direction.  

"I don't trust the machinery now, since the attack.  I'll stay with Tank in case he needs help.  But Neo needs to see the Oracle again."

She wasn't convinced.  Why shouldn't he go in, then, and she could stay behind to help Tank?  But as the thought pushed forward in her mind, she shook herself mentally and straightened herself in her chair.  If Morpheus wanted her to take Neo in to see the Oracle, he had good reason.  So she would take Neo in to see the Oracle.  

Morpheus kept quiet and hoped she wouldn't question him, frozen for several seconds until it became apparent that she wouldn't.  He did have his reasons for wanting to send Trinity and Neo into the Matrix alone, even for such an important cause.  For the more he considered the current state of affairs, the more the question of Trinity nagged at him.  He knew she was important, somehow.  He had known it from the time he had unplugged her thirteen years earlier, and when he learned he was destined to find the One, he knew that that was her importance.  He couldn't explain it but he knew it to be true, knew it with the same force of instinct that guaranteed to him that Neo was end of his search.  And now, when things seemed so certain and yet so likely to dissolve in his hands, he could think of nothing to do but to send them out together and see what happened.  

"Keep a low profile," Morpheus said, "I don't want you picking up Agents.  This should be uneventful."  

"All right.  When do we go?"  She looked forward again, out at the musty tunnel walls.

"Whenever you're ready."

She sighed.  "I'm always ready."


	3. TOMORROW

A/N:  Pardon the delay for the posting of this chapter.  It's been almost finished for a long time but its posting had to be put off for many reasons beyond my personal control – MTS and Scottishlass will both vouch for me, I think, lol.  I used the time for extra revisions and improvements, though, so drop me a review and tell me whether it was worth the wait. ~ Centaur

_You're a boy and I'm a girl___

_But you know you can lean on me___

_And I don't have no fear___

_I'll take on any man here___

_Who says that's not the way it should be___

_And I'll stand in front of you___

_I'll take the force of the blow___

_Protection___

_            -Tracey Thorn with Massive Attack, "Protection"___

III.  TOMORROW

_We do not have history.  Senior officers know the stories of the lives of the people they unplug, but nobody asks about the lives of those who came before them.  The captain knows the lives of the crew, but the crew do not know the captain.  But those pasts are much forgotten.  We convince ourselves that they weren't real and therefore don't matter; we pretend that our own little horror stories have no effect upon the people – or the fighters – that we become.  We intone that "the Matrix cannot tell you who you are," reminding ourselves and each other that our realities can be what we make of them.  Only those of us who visit the Oracle believe in fate.  Those who never meet her scoff at the idea that they aren't in control of themselves.  Perhaps those of us who visit the Oracle are the only ones who have fate.  ___

_Some of us have nightmares.  Sleep haunts us with visions of a time when the false was real and truth was the carrot dangled just beyond our reach.  Many of us did not have happy lives; at times it is those memories that awaken in the unconscious mind.  We remember a past that only a precious few know.___

_We rarely dream of falling – that kind of abandon is foreign to us.  But there are times we dream of blackness, of suffocating in an ocean of dark, drowning in a void where no one can see our outstretched hands, begging for help.___

***

Trinity and Neo met early, in the Construct.  

"I don't understand why I have to go back already," Neo said, "I just saw her yesterday."

"Morpheus thinks it's important," Trinity replied quietly, subconsciously checking her gear to make sure she had all she needed:  pistols at her hips and back; knife at her belt.  

"She already told me what I need to know."  He shook his head, "we really don't need to do this."

"Wasn't my idea," Trinity said, straightening, "but it needs to be done.  Ready?"

"Sure."  

And the sensory assault of the Matrix engulfed them.

***

Trinity materialized in a deserted, inner-city phone booth.  Within seconds she realized that she had arrived alone.  Under her breath she cursed Cypher again for the damage he had wrought with that damn plasma rifle.  This was a minor inconvenience, especially compared to everything else that had happened, but it was just one more thing that they really didn't need.  She dialled Tank.

"I don't know, you just got diverted!" he said the moment he picked up, foregoing any greeting whatsoever.  "Some glitch in the machinery on our end, dammit.  Hang on, I'll patch you an exit and reroute you—"

"Where did Neo come out?"  Trinity interrupted, a flicker of an idea crossing her mind.

"Where you were supposed to:  6th and Pine.  I couldn't get you closer, they were all busy areas."  He chuckled quietly.  "Rush hour."

Trinity jogged to the nearest corner and looked up to see the street signs fixed to the side of the buildings.  3rd and Fremont.  Morpheus' words sprang to mind:  _we need to push him.  She was afraid of pushing him too hsard – but this wasn't really that hard, was it?  After a brief moments consideration she spoke again:  "Don't reroute me."  _

"What?  Why?"

"This'll be good for Neo.  Call it training."  She smiled to herself.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

For a moment the line went quiet, and Trinity knew he was probably checking with Morpheus, covering his mouthpiece to keep her from knowing.  She didn't mind that, really; Tank liked to stick to the rules.  

"All right," he said eventually.  "Anything looks fishy near either of you, though, and I send you exits and you get your asses out.  Boss's orders.  Okay?"

"Sure."  She smiled again, "We'll be fine, don't worry."

"I just don't always like your definition of  'fine,' is all," he laughed.  "Catch you later."

***

Neo's first reaction upon finding himself alone was to call Trinity.  He tried Tank when he couldn't get through to her.  After that, though, when he found himself unable to reach either of them, he sat down on the bench outside the booth and waited.  They were probably talking to each other, he reasoned, and would get in touch with him soon.  He could see the street sign from where he sat:  6th and Pine.  The Oracle, he remembered, was on 5th street, though he wasn't sure of the exact location; if he had to, he could find it on his own.  

The Oracle.  God, back to the Oracle.  As if one session of her bullshit hadn't been enough, now he had to –

What was that?

It was a sound like wind through a tunnel, like a voice whispering through clenched teeth something that he couldn't understand.  It came from somewhere off to his right.  And then a scuffling sound, like crooked, shuffling footsteps.  Slowly, Neo brought his hand to rest casually just to the outside of his knee, fingertips brushing the handle of the pistol tucked in his boot.  _Just keep breathing and relax, Neo.  He exhaled.  __Rules can be broken.  You made the jump.  There is no spoon._

But then she appeared, stumbling around a corner out of an alley.  She was just a kid, really; couldn't have been more than sixteen or seventeen, long hair matted with sweat and dirt, clothes torn and stained.  Her eyes were closed and one hand was pressed to the side of her head.  The other trailed along the side of the building, fingertips following the mortar grooves between the bricks as though to guide her.  Her walking was erratic – she looked drunk.  The only reason she noticed Neo at all was that she happened to stumble a little and step squarely on his foot.

"Oh, shit!  I'm sorry," she said loudly, and then clutched at the sides of her head as though the sound of her own voice had hurt her.

"Hey, don't worry about it."  He reached out and grabbed her by the shoulder to keep her from falling over as she began to sway again.  "Are you all right?"

"Yeah – yeah, I'm okay. . . " she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.  "I just – can you tell me what corner this is?"

"Pine and 6th." 

"What?  Jesus H. Christ.  How in hell did I . . . ."  She shook her head, looking bewildered.

"You sure you're all right?"

"Yeah, I'm. . . yeah.  Thanks."  

"No problem."  

She looked no better as she stumbled off, pausing at the intersection to look carefully in all four directions before crossing to the left and disappearing down Pine.  _Poor kid, Neo thought, __she's too young to be messed up in that kind of drug shit.  But his phone rang before he could ponder the issue any longer._

"Yeah."

"Neo, it's me."  Trinity's voice on the other end.

"Hey – what happened?"

"Some glitch in the machinery on our end.  Tank said he's taken care of it."

"All right.  So will he reroute one of us?"

"He offered to send me over to where you are."  A brief pause.  "I told him not to."

"What?  Why?"

"Let's call this your last training sim.  Only it's not a sim."

"What?"  Neo jumped up at that, nearly dropping his phone.  "Training?  I thought I was done with that."

"Oh, Neo."  For a moment, Neo thought she might laugh.  "Nobody's ever truly done with training."

He shook his head.  "All right.  What are we doing?"

"One of the scariest and most dangerous situations in the Matrix arises when the group is split up.  Sometimes communication is lost.  So that's what we're going to simulate now – I'm the group, you're on your own.  For some reason, you can't reach anybody on your phone.  When that happens, we have a rule that the group must follow specifically the routine that was laid out at the beginning of the mission so that the person who was lost knows where to go to find everybody.  Now, you know where we were headed, right?  So you have to get yourself there and meet back up with me.  For the sake of the exercise, don't use your phone unless a genuine emergency arises and you absolutely need to contact me or to get out.  Got it?"

In spite of himself, Neo found himself rolling his eyes.  "Yeah.  Got it."

"All right.  See you there."  And she hung up.

Neo closed his phone and found himself staring at it, held out in his hand.  He wasn't particularly concerned by this last stint of training, but – "This," he said aloud, "is a real pain in the ass."  Then he pocketed the phone, shook his head once to himself, and began the trudge down the deserted sidewalk toward 5th.

At the corner, he realised he wasn't as close as he had thought – a good six or seven blocks.  _And hey, a block and a half more to Zhang's Noodle H— he caught the memory before it caught him.  __You've never eaten noodles, Neo.  You've eaten single-celled protein and – God, and—.___

It wasn't revulsion that caused his head to jerk, though.  He realised that he had been walking with his head down, left shoulder all but brushing the bricks and windows of the shops that he passed.  That had probably been a good instinct, he realised, if he wanted to remain unnoticed in the lunchtime rush-hour crowd, but those shoes that he had noticed in the corner of his eye. . . the polish was too spotless, the cut of the pants too perfect.  His head jerked around and there, surely enough, he saw the retreating back of an Agent.  Instinctively he drew a breath and stepped closer to the wall, one hand reaching for the gun at his hip, beneath his coat.  The Agent didn't turn, though; he kept walking intently away until, a half a block or so down the way, he paused, touched his earpiece, and turned into a doorway.  Neo exhaled sharply and tried to force his shoulders to stop shaking, to calm his racing pulse.  _He didn't notice you, Neo, you're all right.  You're all right.  _

That was unnerving, though, to literally brush shoulders with an Agent without being noticed.  For a few minutes he toyed with the idea of calling Trinity and asking her, but decided against it.  Training sims had to be viewed as the real thing.  Besides, Tank would call if anything out of the ordinary appeared.  

Through the rest of his walk, Neo couldn't decide if he was better off keeping his head down and hoping to go unnoticed if any other Agents were to appear, or if he should keep his head up and actively watch for them.  He settled for an awkward medium between the two, keeping his head as low as he could while still keeping his gaze up and ahead of him, scanning the masses over the rims of his sunglasses.  At one point he did see another Agent, but that one was across the street and almost thoroughly blocked from view through the crowds.  Neo was less unnerved by the failure of that Agent to notice him.

A block away from the Oracle's tenement building, he broke into a steady jog.  The crowd was a little thinner, here, so he had room to move.  As he crossed the last intersection he glanced up at the street sign to confirm his location.  It was when he brought his gaze back down again that he saw him – there, across the street.  The third Agent.  Unmoving on the sidewalk.  But there was no mistaking whether this one had seen him.  In fact, Neo would have sworn that the Agent's gaze was fixed directly on his face, watching him as he ran faster down the street.  For a single instant Neo looked down to keep from stepping on the legs of a junkie sprawled out in the shade of a few trash cans.  When he looked up again, the sidewalk was empty.  Neo was unsure as to whether there had ever been an Agent there in the first place.  _Jesus, Neo, you're losing it, man.  Get your act together.  Don't tell this to Trinity.  The last thing she needs to hear is that you're picking up Agents on your first solo stint.  He took a breath to collect himself, and turned the corner into the small parking lot in front of the Oracle's building._

***

Trinity had convinced Tank to send her a motorcycle, and she was leaning on the seat of her Speed Triple when Neo wheeled haphazardly in from the sidewalk.  

"Hey, you made it," she said, sounding – and feeling – strangely satisfied.

Neo smiled and attempted to sound nonchalant:  "Of course I made it."

Trinity's eyebrows rose in amusement, and she shook her head.  "Anything to report?"

A pause.  "No," he said, "nothing.  How come you got a bike and I had to walk?"

"It wasn't my training sim."  She could tell he was holding something back.  Years of watching people in the Matrix had taught her to read people's expressions with some confidence.  And all the time of watching Neo specifically – she could tell there was something wrong.  "You sure everything's okay?" she asked.

"Yeah.  I'm fine."

_Let it go, Trinity.  He's just frazzled from having been on his own.  "All right," she said, "let's go in."_

Mojo was sitting, as usual, across from the elevator.  Trinity nodded to him in greeting, and waited to be waved through.  For a moment he said nothing, though, he simply cocked his head and looked at them over top of his glasses, fingertips drumming lightly against his cane.  "Oh!" he exclaimed finally, "I remember you, you're Morpheus' right-hand man – er, woman."  He broke into a throaty laugh that quickly broke into a harsh cough, and he spat something onto the floor beside him.  "Sorry," he said, "go on down."

Neo followed Trinity into the elevator, and waited as she pressed the button for the Oracle's floor.  The doors closed.  There was silence for a moment.

"So," he said, "when were you last here?"

"Six years ago."

"For your own visit?"

"Yes."  

"Changed much?"

Her lips twitched and she just barely seemed to smile.  "Not so far, no.  So far it's exactly the same.  Even old Mojo looks exactly the same."

Neo laughed; somehow, he wasn't at all surprised.  "He didn't say anything yesterday."

"He recognized Morpheus.  He didn't have to."

There was silence between them again; silence that hung thick and heavy, like a shroud, in the tiny elevator car.

"Trinity," Neo said, suddenly.

"Yes?"

"Yesterday, in that subway station. . ."

Trinity felt her shoulders tense, her hands curling into fists.  "Yes?"

"What – what was it you wanted to say to me?"

The elevator rolled to a stop and the doors slid slowly open.  "I don't remember," Trinity said, before stepping out.

***

Trinity led Neo down the narrow hallway, fiery anticipation lodged in her chest.  Before the same familiar, orange door she stopped and spun on her heel.  "This is it," she said.

"Yeah," Neo said stiffly, "this is it."  Then he chuckled, "and I bet you have one piece of advice:  be honest, she knows more than I can ima—"

A single raised eyebrow silenced him.  With one hand she indicated the doorknob.

But again, before his hand could touch the grimy steel, the door opened – of its own accord, it seemed, for a moment.  It opened just barely, too little to be able to see inside the room, but then the space was filled by a woman's face.  Trinity recognised her as the woman with the snake-eyes.  Six years later, she looked exactly the same as she had before, and Trinity found herself looking down and seeing just how different she was, now.  Every year in her life settled in her body like five years for a normal person.  _Your eyes, Morpheus had said to her once, __you have the eyes of someone who has seen too much.  I can always tell what you're looking at, but I always wonder what you actually see. . ._

"Hello, Trinity," the woman said, "and Neo, back so soon?"

Neo looked to Trinity, and then spoke when she didn't answer:  "Uh, yeah."

The woman smiled, eyes fixed on both Neo's face and, it seemed, the wall behind him, at the same time.  "The Oracle was expecting you to come.  But she won't see you now."

Trinity felt her lips tighten, but Neo was less subtle:  "What?"

"You already know all you're meant to know at the moment, Neo.  Your path will find you in its time."  She turned to Trinity:  "keep an eye on this one, Trinity.  He's in a hurry – watch he doesn't run himself into his early grave."  It may have been intended as a joke but it came out humourless, dry.  The hallway was swallowed by a quiet heavy enough to curdle on the skin.

"Best of luck to you both," the woman said.  And the door closed.

"That was creepy," Neo said.

"Yes," Trinity said distractedly.  The woman's words unsettled her strangely. Suddenly, resolved, she straightened sharply and squared her sunglasses over the bridge of her nose.  "Right," she said, "let's go then."  

***

Trinity's phone began to ring when they were in the elevator.

"Aren't you going to answer that?"

Trinity shook her head.  "No, we have strict rules about using our phones within a certain distance from the Oracle.  Tank probably lost us on the monitors and was calling to find us again.  He can wait a few minutes."  

Neo nodded.  "So – what happens now?"

"Go back to the ship.  From there. . . Zion, probably.  We'll pick up a few more people there and then head back out to unplug the rest ourselves."

"There are soldiers in Zion?  What are they doing there?"

"Waiting.  Most of them are survivors who have lost their crews for different reasons, so they wait there for new ships to be built, or to be needed by crews like ours."

Trinity's phone was still ringing, persistently, from her hip.  

"When can you answer that?" Neo asked.

"Not before we're outside the building."

"You'd think Tank would have figured out that you're not answering."

Trinity nodded, "Yeah."  A moment later she pulled the phone out and turned it off.  "Enough of that.  He'll find us once we're out of the building."

Outside, Trinity's motorcycle was waiting where she had left it.  She switched her phone back on and pulled the keys from her inside pocket, then swung her leg over and went to start the ignition.  But a moment before the engine turned over, Neo laughed and touched her shoulder.  "Look," he said, pointing.  Across the street, a middle-aged man in tarnished clothes stumbled along the sidewalk, one hand clutching the side of his head.  "Somebody around here's been dealing some bad drugs," Neo said, "that's the second person I've seen like that today."  He didn't notice that Trinity had frozen on the bike, one hand tightly gripping the gun at her hip, all senses alert.  When she spoke, though, it caught his attention:  "Oh, shit."  Then:  "You said you saw someone else like that?"

As if on cue, her phone began to ring.

"Tank?  Talk to me."  She pulled one fingerless glove off her right hand and flexed it a few times, hearing the joints crack, and put it back on.

"Fuck, Trinity, I don't know what happened."  He sounded frantic.  "I had no clue they even knew you were in.  Neo had those close brushes earlier on but it didn't look like they had seen him—"

Trinity exhaled sharply.  "All right, so we have Agents.  How many?"

"Three.  But there's more."

"Jesus."

"Trinity, I've never seen them do this before.  It's like they've plotted to trap you."

"What?"

"They've cut every viable exit within… damn… five miles."

"Goddammit."

"I don't know what to tell you—"

"I need to get off this phone, they'll track it.  Just tell me where the nearest exit is."

"Bath Road and Young, bottom of the alley." 

"All right.  We'll get there."  She hung up and turned to Neo.  "How many Agents did you see on the way over here?"

"I – three.  But it didn't look like they saw me."

"Looks like they did.  And that guy—" she pointed to where they had seen the man stumbling on the sidewalk "—that was a host that an Agent had vacated."

"They vacate their hosts?  I thought they just kept them until they were killed."

"They vacate them when they have reason."

"Oh, shit."  
  


"Yeah.  Neo, they've cut every hardline within five miles of us.  We have to get to Bath and Young."  She started the engine of the bike, then tossed her phone down and promptly drove over it.  "Get on.  We've got to go."

Neo held firmly to Trinity's waist with one arm.  In his other hand he held the pistol from his boot, concealed beneath his sleeve.  Trinity felt him steady himself behind her, then gunned the engine and shot off into the street.  

The road was slightly less packed than it had been earlier, but it was still too busy for Trinity's peace of mind.  Too many potential hosts.  But there was no way to get to the exit without either shooting through the busy area of downtown or adding four or five miles to their travel distance.  Abruptly, Neo tensed harshly against her back, his fist digging into her stomach.

"Are you all right, Neo?"

Silence for a moment.

"Neo?"

"Yeah – yeah, I'm fine."  He relaxed.  "I just learned how to drive a motorcycle."

Trinity smiled slightly to herself.  _Thank you, Tank.  "Okay," she said, "let's get you a bike, then."_

"What, can Tank send me one?"

"No.  He needs a hardline for that."

"Where, then?"

Her response was simply to speed up and point with her left hand.  Ahead of them, waiting for the light to change, was a middle-aged man on a red Yamaha motorcycle.  Neo got the hint.  Quickly, he pulled his feet up onto the seat with him, bracing himself against Trinity's shoulder.  She heard him whisper "sorry, man," just before he leapt off.  In her rearview mirror, Trinity saw Neo push the other man off his bike and an instant later heard him rev his engine and shoot off after her.  At the same time, though, she saw the man on the ground begin to twitch a little, and then a flash of electricity –

Oh, shit.

She moved faster than she could think, tugging her gun from its shoulder holster and firing back under her arm.  Instantly the people on the street around began to scream, some of them diving to the ground, others ducking into doorways.  But that didn't matter to her – in the mirror, she saw the motorcyclist writhing on the ground, clutching at his leg, bloody from where she had shot him.  _I just saved your life, she found herself thinking.  But he had been morphing when she shot him, there was no question.  Which meant one thing only – _

Here they came.

Neo was pacing her now, cruising to her left in the next lane, steering quite confidently with one hand as he tucked his pistol back into his boot and reached for the bigger gun strapped to his back.  Frantically, she scanned the roadside for an alley or a tunnel, anything that might pull them away from the busy main roads.  She found nothing.  And then there was the revving of a car engine behind them, and the sound of tires screeching on pavement.  A gunshot ripped through the air beside Trinity's ear.  Instinctively she wheeled over to her right, to the side of the road.  In the corner of her eye she saw Neo shoot off to the other side.  _Do it now, Neo.  This is your chance.  You know who you are._

As the Agent's car pulled up to her left she swung her leg back over the bike and crouched down, balancing precariously on one footpeg and steering with one hand, using the bike's steel engine as a shield.  She braced her shooting arm over the seat and the Agent's head slid into her sights.  She fired but her bullet was met only with a blur of motion; the driver's side window shattered as her shot went straight through the other side of the car.  And then she saw him turn and fix his gun on her, gaze robotically stoic.  She released the handlebars and took hold of the wheel fork, pulling herself lower beside the engine.  A shot fired.  But then she heard the grating sound of metal on pavement, the screech of car breaks.  Another gunshot, and more screeching noises.  Slowly, she let herself peek over the top of her bike and saw the car swerving erratically, the Agent fiercely gripping the steering wheel.  And then she saw Neo, on the other side of the car, perched as she was on one side of his bike, and she realised he had shot the tires out.  Immediately she pulled herself back up on top of the bike and turned to fire at the wheel on her side.  An explosion of sparks shot from where the wheel frame winced its way along the pavement, and then it hit a pothole and flipped the whole thing up onto its side.

Trinity allowed herself a moment's exultation, but it was short; she turned her gaze to Neo just in time to see another Agent – this one on the sidewalk – take hold of the back of his bike and swing himself on.  She saw the Agent's hands fix themselves around Neo's neck, saw Neo's hand reach back and plaster itself across the Agent's face.  The Agent's glasses broke.  She saw his earpiece come loose.  Her reaction was delayed but she moved fast, slowing and coming up behind Neo's bike.  She could see Neo's contorted expression as he tried to steer his bike and fend off the Agent at the same time.  _Just cover his eyes, Neo. . ._

Then she shot up beside them, fixed her gun to the Agent's temple, and fired.  An old woman slid off and collapsed on the roadside.

"Are you okay?" Trinity yelled to Neo over the roar of the engines.

He rubbed his neck.  "Yeah, I'm fine, I – oh, shit!"

She looked ahead just in time to see the semi truck roll out into the roadway in front of them.  Neo was far enough over to be able to duck sideways and slide beneath the trailer, but Trinity would have to pass in front of the cab, somehow.

"There's an alley to the left just on the far side of the truck," she shouted to Neo, "get in there."  There was no time to hear his reaction.  She pulled her feet up onto the seat in front of her and then moved up onto them, crouching on top of the bike, and just before colliding with the truck's massive front tire, she jumped.  Time seemed to slow for an instant as she cleared the hood, diving across in front of the windshield and the Agent who sat there, and then caught her bike as it shot through the other side.  She landed hard on the bike, gouging her neck on the handlebar.  An instant later Neo shot through from under the trailer, bike tipped over to one side.  He saw her the moment he righted himself, and followed her pointed arm as she indicated the alleyway half a block up.  

"Dump your bike," Trinity yelled, " but leave the engine running."  And in a fluid motion both bikes were tipped on their sides, two black figures sprinting into the maze between buildings, the sounds of their footsteps camouflaged by the sounds of the running motorcycles.  Trinity led Neo down to the end of the alley and then to the right, where a dumpster sat beneath a fire escape.  She made a motion whose meaning was obvious:  _inside.  They could hear the footsteps of the Agents echoing up the alley.  Neo leapt in and curled into a corner.  Trinity leapt up and took hold of the fire escape's pull-down ladder, drawing it down as far as she could, before releasing it and dropping into the dumpster beside Neo.  The ladder clanged loudly as it shot back up._

"The fire escape."  The unmistakeable voice of an Agent.  Trinity grabbed a piece of soggy cardboard from beside her in the trash and used it to cover both herself and Neo as best as she could before the Agents were upon them.

They lay cramped and unmoving in the half-darkness of this makeshift shelter, Neo wedged between Trinity, a rather foul-smelling garbage bag, and the dumpster's cold metal wall.  She tensed against him as they heard the fire escape ladder pulled down and three successive sets of feet sprinting up.  Beneath his chin, Neo could see the wide, bloody wound at the base of Trinity's neck.  Carefully, so as not to shift the cardboard, he moved his hand to pinch the skin together and then pressed until the bleeding stopped.  The metallic footsteps echoed further and further up the side of the building, fading away as the Agents reached the rooftop.  Trinity didn't move for several more seconds, so Neo kept still also.  Finally, she pushed the cardboard down just enough to peek over the top.  The fire escape was clear; no sign of Agents anywhere.  Then she shoved it away and sat up.  Before vaulting out of the dumpster, she lifted her hand to touch her neck.  There was still blood there, but the wound itself wasn't bleeding.

"Thanks," she said.

"No problem."  Then, "Trinity?"

"Yeah?"

"Where does your name come from?"

The question hit Trinity like a blow to the gut.  "What?"

"Your name – how did you choose it?"

"I. . . don't know.  It was just a word to me.  I liked the sound of it.  It felt right."

"Ah.  Okay."

"Why do you ask?"

"No reason.  Just – it suits you."

Trinity let her eyes close for a moment behind her glasses.  "Thanks," she said.  Then, "come on.  Let's get the hell out of here."

***

The exit was at the bottom of an old alleyway—an old rotary phone by the window in an abandoned low-rent basement apartment.  Trinity noticed, faintly, as they ran down the street, that it was a night that could have been beautiful; the air smelled sweet, saturated by a faint mist.  It kept the blood from drying, though, and she could feel it trickling down beneath her collar and along her spine.  Neo had a deep gash on the back of his hand and she watched him as he held it, pinching the broken skin together, cradled in front of his chest.  By their standards, though, this was almost comfortable, almost surreally comfortable.  Perhaps that's why she neglected to catch his arm before they turned the corner, or perhaps it was just because she'd allowed herself to forget, for a few minutes, that Neo was a relative novice at all this.  A memory of Morpheus' voice would echo through her head, later, when it was too late:  _when the operator makes the call before you arrive, always scan the area of the hardline before you enter it.  _

Instinctively, as they neared the edge of the building that marked where the alley was, Trinity slowed down, stepping closer to the wall, preparing to steal a glance into the passage.  She felt it then:  _shit – déjà vu.  But before she could stop him and before he noticed, a fraction of a second later, that she wasn't with him, Neo was already turning into the open space between the buildings.  _

A shot rang out, and to Trinity, it seemed to mark the instant that time stopped.  As though through glass, she saw Neo clutch at his shoulder and wheel around, a sound like a cry ripped from his throat.  The bullet ricocheted off the pavement behind him.  

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard herself think, _he's hit — oh God, he's hit._

And somewhere closer — _but he's not dead, the One can't be dead._

But there was no thought at all that pre-empted the action that moved her next, more subtle than instinct, more intense than reaction.  _Live in the moment.  This is my moment.  A fire trickled the length of her limbs, burning out the exhaustion and rejuvenating them.  It propelled her forward fast, inhumanly fast, until she felt her body collide with his, one hand raised to brace his head tight against her shoulder, the other poised to catch him square in the chest, knocking him to the ground.  And as the next shots were fired, she felt them all — __one-two-three — lodging themselves in her back and staying there, and could have sobbed with relief that they hadn't passed through her and into Neo.  Exit wounds ruptured her chest.  She felt no pain. _

They crashed, as one, to the floor of the gravel alleyway, the weight of Neo's head shredding the back of Trinity's hand against the sharp stones, but she didn't feel that.  She kept herself square on top of him, head pressed in the crook of his neck and shoulder, willing him above all to keep still, to keep perfectly still.  Oh, for how long had she dreamed of being this close to him, how long had she waited, waited, waited for the right time…  Would it be too late, now?  Her free hand closed on the .45 strapped to Neo's hip and froze there, trying to slow her breathing that wanted to come in gasps, and willing him to hold still.  She felt him dead motionless beneath her — stunned, probably — his breath soft against the base of her neck.  Distantly, she could feel hot blood pooling on her back.

The Agent's footsteps were maddeningly slow as they approached, calculated and precise, crunching in the gravel.  Trinity could feel him as he knelt down beside them, checking both their pulses.  And then, with what sounded almost like a sigh, he levelled his gun, slowly, at the back of her head, pressing the muzzle to the base of her skull.  With all her mind she willed Neo not to move.

The Agent's pistol cocked.  "That was quite foolish of you, Ms—"

And, summoning her last ounce of adrenaline, she wrenched the magnum from Neo's side and flipped over, knocking the gun from the Agent's hand and firing, point-blank, into his forehead, all in one motion.  With a fizzle of electricity, the body of a homeless man collapsed over Neo's legs.  

The pain descended upon Trinity like an anvil as she lay on her back in the dirt.  With a choking gasp like something beaten from her chest, her grip loosened on the gun.  And then Neo was there, kneeling beside her, touching her face, her neck, gingerly, as though afraid to break her.  Somewhere in the distance, the phone was still ringing, persistently.

"What was that?  What the hell did you just do?"  Neo tried to sound composed but his voice failed him, cracking at the last second.  Her blood pooled beneath her, trails of it reaching out to touch knees. 

"My glasses," she whispered.  Gently, he eased them off her face, and then pulled off his own.  And for the first time, he saw her eyes looking unguarded, without that hint of defensiveness that lurked there even in the real world.  

"Neo, I need to tell you something—" she inhaled sharply and coughed, blood wetting her lips.  Neo wiped it away with his thumb, then gently, so gently, lifted her against his chest, bringing her face closer to his ear so he could hear her barely-audible whisper.  She smiled weakly and he felt something break inside him — he had never seen her smile before.

"The Oracle told me that I would fall in love," she breathed, "and that the man I loved would be the One.  So you see why I couldn't let you die — because I love you… I love you, so I know you're the One."  Weakly she tried to raise her hand to touch him, but her strength failed her and it fell.  Neo caught it and lifted it to his face, pressing her palm to his cheek.  She smiled again, struggling to keep her eyes open, praying to hear the words she wanted to hear before she let go — _I love you too, Trinity.  But Neo was silent over her, tears running down his face as he held her tighter.  She had no more strength to speak.  __Say it, Neo, she willed, __say it, please, I need to hear it.  But he was silent.  And then she couldn't hold on anymore, her eyes closed, and the pain faded._

***

Neo was crying over Trinity, holding her close and crying and the only thoughts that came coherently to his head were _I love you too, Trinity, I love you too but the Oracle said I'm not the One and it should have been me who died, it should have been me who died, it should have been me, it should have been me, it should have been me it should have been me it should have been me. . . .  But he couldn't make his mouth work to speak._

He could feel it seeping out of him.  His hands… one against her back, one supporting her head.  Blood – her blood – a thick film over his skin, a glove on his fingers.  Her pulse beating in her neck, beneath his fingertips.  Slower, slower. . . .  Not gone.  Not gone!  No!  Where – there!  He found it again, moving his fingers just a little.  Weak, but still there.

_You can't die on me, Trinity.  _

His hands pressed harder against her cold, clammy skin.  

_You can't die, Trinity, it should have been me, __let me die instead.  Let me die instead, I'm nobody, I'm nobody and you're everything. . . . the resistance needs you, it should have been me, you can't die. . . .  _

Fingertips burning.  Burning!  Goddamn, they're hot!  Her pulse – there, there it was, still there . . . stronger!  

He shifted her to hold her against him with one arm, his free hand moving to her chest to feel the clipped rise-and-fall of her breathing.  His still-burning fingertips pressed just below the hollow of her throat.  Felt her gasp, sucking in a sudden jolt of air, eyes still closed, like she hadn't noticed she'd done it.  Felt a jolt to his own chest, his lungs unwilling to fill, the air coming halfway down before he choked on it and coughed it back up.  

_It should have been me.  _

Tears, tears still on his face as he pressed his hand harder to her chest, felt her breathe again, her heartbeat stronger still.  Muscles twitched in her shoulders.  

_It should have been me.  _

s

Felt himself growing weaker, weaker.  His arms wanted to give out.  Felt her breathing stronger now, normal.  Hands still burning.  Slowly, so slowly he laid her down.  _Lay her down before you drop her, Neo.  ___

_It should have been me. . . .  _

Her heart.  Beating properly now.  His muscles, gone weak, too weak to hold him.  He collapsed slowly beside her, stretched out.  His head came to rest on her stomach.  He could feel it moving as she breathed, in and out, in and out, stronger and stronger.  

_It should have been me, Trinity, it should have been me.  _

***

Morpheus stood next to Trinity, gaze fixed on her bio-monitors, as he waited for her flicker of a pulse to fade away, and the flatline alarm to sound.  He held himself there, resolutely upright, as he felt a tear slide along the side of his nose.  She was dying, she was as good as dead.  And he realised that he had come to take her for granted, that she would always be there, the best fighter, at his side.  But hers would be a hero's death, he reminded himself.  She died to save the One, she took bullets to save the world.  And she would be remembered.  _By God, he thought, __she'll be remembered.  I'll see to it she's always—_

Morpheus blinked, and everything changed.  What was — her patterns were picking up, they were accelerating!  He grasped her wrist and in his hand and sure enough, her pulse beat beneath his fingertips, stronger and stronger. 

"Oh, shit, Morpheus," Tank called from his seat, "we've got problems."

"What?"

"Look at Neo's display."

Morpheus released Trinity's wrist and whipped around to see Neo's monitor, to see the patterns weakening, shrinking as Trinity's continued to grow.

"What the hell's going on?" Tank said a little too loud, "things are going crazy in there!"

"He's the One," Morpheus said, though not even he could pretend that made sense of things.

***

Trinity felt her breathing become less laboured.  The pain faded completely away.  _I'm dead, she thought.  __That's the end.  But then she tested her limbs and felt them move against gravel, she closed her hands and felt blood against her fingertips.  Something heavy rested on her stomach.  She opened her eyes to the black dampness of the night, then licked her lips and tasted blood.  __But I can't be—_

Her hand came up to touch the weight on her stomach, and her fingertips met hair and cold skin.  Instantly she sat up and pulled him with her, Neo's form going more and more limp in her arms as she felt herself becoming stronger.  

"No, Neo!"  She took him by the shoulders and shook him gently, hoping to get his attention, to make him stop.  "Neo, you can't do this to yourself—"

He opened his mouth a little, and Trinity bent her ear to his lips, struggling to hear him.  "It should have been me," he whispered.  His eyes fell closed and his body went lax against her.  

***

Breathing became too hard.  He stopped.  Felt his heart go still in his chest.  Let the numbness creep in along his limbs, slithering toward his core.

Neo knew he was dead.

***

Trinity couldn't react.  Couldn't move.  For a moment she just froze there, holding him against her.  Stunned.  Her mouth opened, "But—"  But what?  Her throat constricted.

"Goddammit, Neo!" she pounded his chest.  He didn't react.  Her hand drifted to his neck to touch his pulse, then pulled back at the last instant.  

The phone continued to ring at the end of the alley.  

Something like a low growl escaped Trinity's throat.  She pulled herself to her feet, lifting Neo with her and leaning him, upright, against the wall.  Then she turned and hoisted him onto her back, feeling his head as it lolled against her shoulder, forcing herself to ignore that she couldn't feel his breath on her skin.  And then she set him down again, against the wall, at the end of the alley.  She reached for the phone—

The cell phone rang in Neo's pocket.  Trinity groaned, then reached and pulled it out.  

"What?" she said harshly into the mouthpiece.

Tank's voice was soft at the other end of the line.  "You need to get yourself out," he said.

"Neo first."

"He's gone, Trinity, and the Agents are coming back.  You need to get yourself out—"

"He's not gone," Trinity said flatly, thumping the side of the building with the heel of her hand as though that would make a difference.  

"He's—"

"He's not gone."  She turned to Neo's body where it slumped against the building, and took hold of one of his shoulders.  "You're not dead, dammit!"  Her voice faltered.  "You can't be dead," she said more softly, pulling the phone away from her ear for a moment.  "I love you," she whispered.

"Look, Trinity," Tank's voice was desperate on the other end of the line.  In the background, Trinity could hear the flatline alarm.  "He's dead," Tank insisted, "we fucked up again.  So pick up the phone and _get out, the Agents will be there--"_

"I'll get out of here after Neo does."  She hung up the cell and tossed it behind her, ignoring it when it started to ring again.  Her hand extended to the hardline, grasping the receiver and pressing it to Neo's ear.  As he vanished, she heard footsteps behind her.  She didn't need to turn to see who it was.

Trinity dove through the window, receiver in hand, and cowered against the wall beneath the phone table.  A bullet flew in over her head as she reached up to place the phone back in its cradle.  Almost instantly it started to ring again, and as she stretched for it an Agent's arm with a gun came through the window at her.  The last thing she heard before she vanished was the sound of a shot fired.  

***

The air became light and heavy at the same time, liquid and swirling almost beyond Neo's reach.  The weight of the real world and the feather-lightness of the Matrix, together – not a medium between them, but both at the same time, pulling at him.  He felt himself sliding out of his body.

But he was still there, in the alley, outside of himself, watching through the eyes of his own body but somehow detached from it.  Through a smokescreen.  Trinity cradled him for a moment – he didn't feel that.  Her lips moving, saying something.  He couldn't hear it.  He watched her mouth, trying to read it, but he couldn't focus, everything was hazy.  Colours and shapes blurring together.  

He could see her as she took his body by the shoulders and thumped his chest, his head rocking back –

-- He was on the Nebuchadnezzar in his chair, flatline alarm sounding over his head --

-- and rocking forward against his chest --

-- He was with Trinity again, in the alley.  She had lifted his body, now, and was pulling it onto her back.  He couldn't feel himself but he could sense her, muscles straining under his weight.  Why?  Everything was light, so light and thin, so airy and wispy.  He wanted to laugh, tried to laugh but his dead body wouldn't answer him.  _There is no spoon, Trinity!  There is no spoon!_

His consciousness blinked; everything went black for an instant.

And then it was black and green, everything black and made up of coursing green symbols, the code coming to life before his eyes.  He was up, now; away from his body and above everything, looking down.  He could see the phone ringing, he could see the simple, barely-moving code that was his own limp body, he could see the flowing, pulsing, changing code that was the living Trinity.  Symbols, racing symbols, that's all it was, and it was wrong, so horribly wrong and unreal.  

Instantly he could feel himself – not his dead RSI or his body but the essence _himself – existing, there, as this floating consciousness, watching the whole scene.  _

Morpheus' voice:  _the mind makes it real._

Trinity's voice:  _the Matrix isn't real! _

_There is no fucking__ spoon.___

It was rushing around him, rushing and flowing, heavy and light.  He sought to grasp something, anything, something fixed that he could latch onto and use as an anchor, to put himself back in himself.  He could see Trinity taking hold of his limp form, holding a cell phone away from her ear.  _I love you, he saw her say in the code, though he couldn't hear, he couldn't hear.  He wanted to hear!  Hear her with his own ears, in the real world.  __The Matrix isn't real!  Trinity picked up the exit and pressed it to his ear and he watched the code that made up his RSI vanish, line by line, into the void.  In a desperate effort he reached down, stretched his metaphysical self and latched on to the very end of it, feeling himself sucked through the phone line._

***

The flatline alarm rang from Neo's bio-display, and Morpheus couldn't keep from groaning in frustration as he watched the revived Trinity press the receiver to the ear of Neo's RSI.  Neo was dead, there was nothing to be accomplished by sending it back to his body, and she was risking herself again—

The alarm stopped.

Morpheus turned quickly to see Neo, blinking, barely awake in his chair and already tugging at his restraints.

***

Trinity was choking.  The first thing her body did as it re-awoke was to heave up a mouthful of blood, head turning just enough to retch over the side of the chair.  And then there was the pain – the searing, burning ache that radiated from the wounds in her back and stomach that hadn't healed in the real world.  She was flinching before she even opened her eyes, her face crumbling around the edges, blood-coated teeth gritted against the agony.  Something touched her cheek.  The light hurt when she forced her lids open, but she recognized Neo instantly, backlit from the halogen.  She opened her mouth to speak, but her voice broke into a cry as she inhaled and no words would come out.

And then Morpheus was there, his firm hand on her brow, pulling the plug out of her head.  "We have to get her to the infirmary, right away," he said.  And before the captain got the chance, Neo picked up Trinity's writhing form and whisked it down the hall, her blood staining the sleeves of his sweater.  

"Lay her on her stomach," Morpheus said quickly as he stepped to the sink and began to wash up, sleeves rolled up above his elbows.  Neo helped Trinity to lie forward, arms at her sides, and was amazed at how she didn't make a sound, not a sound, though her grey shirt was made purplish-brown from her blood and her hands were clenched in unbreakable fists, fingernails nails digging into her palms.  

Morpheus had crossed the room and was in the process of drawing something into a syringe, and Neo stood idly by, feeling useless.  He stepped to the sink and washed his hands.

"I'm going to need your help," Morpheus said quietly, brow knitted as he measured out the anaesthetic.

"Anything."

"Good.  We have to get her shirt off," he said, without looking over.

And Neo hesitated.

"I need you to do that, Neo," Morpheus said, "I need to keep my hands clean to administer the anaesthetic.  Just cut it open down the back—use those scissors, there—because she isn't going to want to move her arms."

When he caught sight of her back, Neo fought down the urges to vomit and to cry.  _It should have been me.  Perhaps it was the relative simplicity of the wounds that bothered him so intensely—he had braced himself for flesh the consistency of ground meat, shredded and bloody.  But instead all he saw were three bullet holes, in a neat triangle, at the centre of her back, blood pulsing out, a few inches below her shoulder blades.  Three bullet holes that were in her back instead of his._

"One of our little Matrix confusions," Morpheus said bemusedly, "is why the mind makes real the injuries that are sustained in the Matrix, but not the healing."  He touched the point of the syringe to the plug just below Trinity's right shoulder-blade.  "Do you still want to help?"

"Yes."

"All right.  Go tell Tank to upload you the Medical program, disk seven.  I'd like you to upload the rest at some point, but that should suffice for this task."

And Neo nodded before heading back to the Core to become a doctor.  _This would have taken me years, in the old world. . . and now it's a couple of keystrokes.  He let himself laugh to keep from crying._

***

Trinity awoke to the feeling of company, not alone in the darkness.  Her mouth was dry and papery, her eyes nearly sealed shut with sleep.  The sensation in her back was distant, detached, like it was part of somebody else's body.  She brought her hand to her eyes, wiping them, before attempting to open them.

"Try to keep your arms still to keep from stretching the stitches."

Trinity smiled in spite of herself.  "So you've uploaded the medical programs."  

"Some of them."  Neo rose from where he had been sitting on the floor, and came to sit on the edge of her bed.  "If you can sit up, I have water for you."

Rising was painful, but not as unbearable as the initial agony of the bullet wounds.  It was tolerable.  And the water soothed her dry mouth.  "How long did all that take?" she asked.

"Not long.  It's only been a few hours since. . . ." He looked away.

Trinity looked down.  "And you're okay?" 

He held his hands out before him, palms up, flipping them over and back as though that were the only part of him that could have been injured.  "Just fine," he said.  She nodded.  

They sat for a few minutes in silence, Trinity holding the empty cup in her lap.

"I should let you sleep," he said finally.

Trinity nodded.  "Yeah."  He took the cup from her and rose to the door.

A myriad of questions pulsed through her, insecurities, uncertainties.  Why couldn't she ask him?  What had happened?  Did he—

"What happened to you?" she threw into the dark, suddenly.  His hand was on the latch when her voice came at him, freezing him there in the doorway.  He turned.

"When?"

"After I was shot… Did you—" _die?  Did you die? Did you die for me?  She couldn't bring herself to finish the question, but the glint in his eye, the black speck of frightened confusion, that said it all.  That he understood what she was saying—and that the answer was__ yes.  _

"God, Neo," she lifted her eyes to a point on the wall, somewhere over the doorframe, and shook her head slowly, side to side.  "You shouldn't have done that—"

"Trinity—" his voice was thin, pained, before she interrupted him:

"—but thank you."  She met his eyes.  "You shouldn't have done it.  But since you did, thank you."  And her tone was genuine, her thanks heartfelt.  Neo could only nod numbly.

"Do you believe, now?" she asked, finally.

"Yeah."  He ran a hand over his head.  "I . . . I'm the One."  He exhaled slowly.

And she felt a thrill in her chest like a butterfly, the overwhelming consequences of what that meant.  He nodded once, as though affirming himself.  "I'm the One," he repeated, before waiting a moment and then turning back to the door.  But he couldn't bring himself to open it, not yet.  He turned around again.

"I've been trying for hours to figure out whether I should apologize or thank you," he said quietly.

"I did what I had to do," Trinity said without looking over.

"But did you mean it when you—"

"Yes."  If Neo noticed the tremor in her voice, he made no indication of it.

"Trinity, I . . . ."  He reached for the back of his neck, touching the plug, and shuddered.  His hand wrenched away and he made himself lift his eyes.  _Three bullets in her back instead of his chest.  The guilt threatened to overwhelm him.  She lay on her back, now, staring fixedly at some point in the ceiling, arms crossed over her stomach, unmoving.  __Like a corpse – the thought came unbidden to his mind.  And something cracked._

In two strides he was back beside her, fallen to his knees, reaching for her hand; the tin cup clattered to the floor.  "Three bullets, Trinity," he choked out, "three bullets," his voice breaking, face pinched and crumbling. Behind his eyes all he could hear was the sound of gunfire, three shots in succession, like a crooked pulse, over and over, over and over, over and over, throbbing against his temples.  

Her eyes – closed, then opened again, fixed on the unblinking ceiling.  "Anyone would have—"

"That's not true and you know it."  He clung to her hand with both of his, desperately, as to a lifeline that he prayed would keep him from drowning.

She kept silent.  She saw that he realized, then; he remembered and he knew.  His fingertips bruised her palm. 

"I love you," he said finally, his voice a throaty whisper.  Her eyes moved to meet his and he looked broken, like the weight of the universe had fallen upon his shoulders and so much depended on how she reacted.  Sitting up was painful, again, but she did it anyway; her fingertips reached to brush the skin just below his ear, and she smiled at him.  He fell gratefully against her, face pressed into the side of her neck, careful not to squeeze too hard.  They just held each other, unmoving, for a long time, until Trinity pulled back and found his mouth with hers.  When they kissed, finally, it felt to Neo like he'd been drawn onto a sandy beach, the waves lapping at his toes but no longer threatening to suffocate him.  And all Trinity could hear as she clung to him was his voice echoing in her mind, _it should have been me, as he had drained his life into her.  She made space for him on her narrow bed and they clutched at each other, holding each other close as they slept._

***

Trinity woke too early the next morning, the burning of her back reduced to a much more subtle ache.  It was bearable.  Neo slept soundly still, pressed to her side, so she moved slowly, trying not to wake him, as she rose.  She was nearly successful – just standing up – when he stirred, rolling to where she had been.  His eyes snapped open when he realized she wasn't there.

"Trinity?"  His voice was thick with sleep.

"I'm here," she said, standing at the edge of the bed.  She touched his knee.

"The lights aren't even on yet – are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Neo.  I'll be right back."

"Wha – where are you going?"  The nervousness in his voice made her want to laugh, like he was afraid she had changed her mind and he'd never see her again once she closed the door behind her.

In her hand, she held the foil cigarette package.  She held it out, now.  "Boiler room."

For a moment a flicker of something like sadness crossed his eyes, then vanished.  "Oh . . . can I come with you?"

She smiled.  "Sure, if you want.  I really won't be long, though.  I'll be right back."  But he was already sitting up, legs over the edge of the bed, rubbing his eyes.  He pulled on his boots without doing them up.  

In the boiler room, Neo moved to sit down where he'd been the last time, against the wall.  It was colder this time, since the ship was asleep, and there was no steam; he could see clearly as Trinity pulled the can from its hiding place, holding it in one hand, cigarettes in the other.  Then she went to the incinerator, opened the door, and dropped it all inside.  

"Done with that," she said, rubbing her palms against the sides of her pants.  She turned to Neo, who looked confused, sitting on the floor.  Then he understood, and he smiled.  He took her hand when she held it out to him, and stood up.  "Let's go back to bed," Trinity said, weaving her fingers through his as she pulled him close to her, "it's too early to be up."  

***

They stood in the middle of a crowded intersection, unarmed.  Waiting, watching the people pass by.  After a few minutes Neo took of his sunglasses and began to meet the gazes of each of the passers-by, holding their eyes for a few seconds.  Trinity did the same.

"You're ready for this," Trinity said flatly, without looking at him.

He nodded.  "Yes.  I'm ready."  A pause.  "Thank you for coming with me," he added.

Very briefly, she reached over and brushed his palm with her gloved fingertips.  "You're welcome."  Then she pulled back.  "Somebody will morph soon.  He'll come."

He appeared behind them, but Neo sensed it anyway, grabbing Trinity by the shoulder and wheeling them around just in time to see the body of a flower vendor morph into—

"Agent Smith," Neo said, his voice round and confident.  Trinity recognized him as the Agent from the alley.

Agent Smith stepped closer to them, gun in hand.  He almost appeared to be smiling.  "You have eluded me twice now, Mister Anderson," he said, "but you seem to be waiting for me here, and I believe, as the saying goes, 'third time's the charm.'"  He levelled his gun and fired.  

The code appeared instantly before Neo's eyes, the coursing, unreal green.  His arms crossed in front of his chest.  "No."  The bullets stopped, then turned in place and took off, again, planting themselves in the Agent's chest.  "That's three bullets in _your chest this time, mutherfucker."  In the code, Neo could see Smith as he attempted to vacate his host.  It was then, in that moment, that he could see it, see the essential code of the Agent itself, and in that instant he reached out, latched onto it, and broke it, deleting the whole thing, strand by strand._

Trinity was grinning when Neo let his vision refocus, losing the code.  "So," she said, "is that the end of him?"

"Yeah.  That's the end of him."

***

Slowly, we learn to think beyond today, beyond tomorrow.  The future begins to open before us, spreading wider and thinner, like an inverted funnel.  Our worlds become less static, now; we open to each other a little, just a little.  Perhaps we can be close, now.  When we can conceive of life beyond the horizon, perhaps we can begin to believe in those beyond ourselves.  Perhaps the world isn't bleak and flat, after all.  

In the dark, we find each other with our eyes closed.  Hands outstretched, we reach for each other, stretching towards something that is not ourselves.

_Sometimes we touch each other.  _


End file.
